Samuel Hanson Cox

Born: Aug 25, 1793

Death: Oct 2, 1880

Birthplace: Rahway

Nationality: United States

Samuel Hanson Cox

Date of Birth : Aug 25, 1793

Date of Death : Oct 2, 1880

Birth Place : Rahway

Samuel Hanson Cox was an American Presbyterian minister and a leading abolitionist.
Cox was born in Rahway, New Jersey, of Quaker stock. After renouncing his religion and serving in the War of 1812, he studied law before entering the ministry. He was pastor of the Presbyterian church at Mendham, New Jersey from 1817 to 1821. He then moved to New York City, where he was pastor of two churches from 1821 to 1834. Cox helped found the University of the City of New York, now New York University, in 1832, teaching classes in theology and contributing the college's motto. Due to his anti-slavery sentiments, he was mobbed, and his house and Laight Street church were sacked in the Anti-abolitionist riots, and he was burned in effigy by another mob in Charleston, South Carolina. After the riots he moved out of the city, and from 1834 to 1837 was professor of pastoral theology at Auburn.
Cox was known beyond the church for his skills as an orator, and a speech made in Exeter Hall in 1833, in which he put the responsibility for slavery in America on the British government, made such a great impression that it was widely republished.